


In Confidence

by MatchaMochi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Again, Angst, Comfort, Dreams and Reality, Gen, Introspection, Kinda, PilotAU, just a litl oneshot fic for lances bday, lance centric, teen rating cuz of language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 06:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20092801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatchaMochi/pseuds/MatchaMochi
Summary: Nobody told him taking off was the easy part.





	In Confidence

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super projecting in here and fair warning, I know absolutely nothing about piloting, my research in aviation was barely enough hgshsghs, I got impatient lol but um well enjoy I guess
> 
> Also, this was done in around two days so there's bound to be mistakes, anyway HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY BLU BOIIIIIII

_It’s mid-afternoon. That time of the day where he’s not really sure if it’s going to rain or the sky was just grey, where he doesn’t know if he should continue working or turn in for the day, where he feels a bit detached, despite talking to people all throughout the morning to noon. _

_He’s at his desk at home, staring out the window. He left his apron in the kitchen, his bed is unmade again. He blinks, slow and blank. Was it a bad day? It doesn’t feel like one._

_It was just…. a day._

_Was he depressed? He doesn’t know. What does it feel like anyway? Falling into a deep, dark pit? Crying out for a piece of your heart back? No. What he feels is like staring at a wall full of wet crimson paint, waiting for it to dry._

_He blinks again when he sees something streaking through the grey sky, leaving white puffy lines in its wake. Outside, a plane flies by, bright and deafening._

_-_

Lance is in the cockpit again. Names and procedures runs through his head as he skims over the buttons and switches overhead, pulls some, lighting it. Check, check, and check. Finally, he grips the yoke, speaks firmly through the microphone as his eyes are trained outside. The plane steadily leaves the ground with the familiar sound of rushing air, heated engines.

It’s smooth sailing after that, its when he tries to land that he suddenly hesitates.

The lights overhead starts to flash at him, suddenly he’s not sure if the coordinates he memorized was right, or the trajectory was accurate or, or if he was too far off course-

His tone turns frantic, he starts to switch on buttons, steers the plane away from the ground. But then, the screen blacks out. He breathes heavily, cold sweat running down his back. He sighs.

He gets out of the simulator and they tell him that he can still try again tomorrow.

_-_

_His family owns a restaurant, downtown. His big sister doesn’t live with them anymore, all his other older cousins too are busy in the main city; working, living their lives, settling down._

_“What do you really want to do Lance? You can’t keep working for your family forever.”_

_“…. I honestly don’t know. I’ll think about it later haha!”_

_That’s Lance, they’ll say. Such a cheerful young thing. It's fine, he has his whole life laid out for him. Everything to take, nothing to lose. _

_Right?_

_-_

Lance can’t sleep. His room feels stuffy, a little too hot. He presses the remote for the ac to his side, he rolls over to the side. Rolls to the other side. He sighs.

His fingers won’t stop moving, they tap on imaginary buttons, on numbers and labels in the cockpit. He closes his eyes and he sees the never-ending blue sky, stretching as far as the eye can see. The sunlight pouring in, the clouds white and ethereal. And more, he sees the cold hard ground, black and rough, looming up to him ominously. He snaps his eyes open, gets off the bed.

The CPT at the main living room is empty since he’s one of the few that hasn’t passed the simulation test yet. Well, it might as be his since he’s the one who frequents it more than anyone else.

He sits on it, flits his hands through the fake controls and switches, closes his eyes and says the procedure out loud, trying not to think about the ground underneath him.

He stays there all night.

-

_He doesn’t really……. have anything to want. When he was five, they asked him what he wanted to be when he’s all grown up and he said he wanted to be a musician. At ten they asked him the same thing and said he wanted to be an explorer, at fifteen he said he wanted to be a doctor. Practical, beneficial, prestigious. It’s what his parents would have wanted, what they’d be proud of._

_When he leaves school, he works at his family restaurant dreaming of the sky. _

_One day, a time where his sister came by to visit them, she catches him staring at an aeroplane as it whizzes past them. She smiles at him, soft and hopeful, and says, “You ever think about being a pilot Lance?”_

_He never did._

_-_

It’s the tenth time Lance leaves the simulation test with a frown. This time though, he sways on his feet, groans as he feels a sudden, splitting headache piercing to him. He hears blood pounding in his ears, feels a dizziness that is unlike anything he’d ever felt before. The ground closes up on him, but he barely feels anything as his head hits the floor and his vision slowly fades to black.

He wakes up in his room later and they tell him that he’d fainted from lack of sleep. Exhaustion, hypotension, oxygen deprivation; those words doesn’t register to him at all once they say that the next test he takes will be the last one.

-

_He still remembers that one wondrous moment, the first time he flies a plane. That moment where he finally escapes gravity, touches the sky, swims through the clouds. He remembers yelling out in elation, telling himself that yes! This is it! This is what he wants. To be here forever, to be in control of where he’s going, to soar up so high the only thing he can see is the sun and sky._

_He never, ever, wants to land._

_-_

Lance is rushing through all his notes, the night before the final test. He wants to make sure that he knows exactly what to do and when he has to do it. To revise everything he’d learned up until now, he just needs to pass this.

Except, he can’t find one of the many notebooks he has scattered about. It’s important, maybe. It _could_ be, he never knows what’ll happen tomorrow, if he’ll forget, if he’ll fail again. This is his last chance, his _only_ chance.

But he can’t find it.

It’s not in his wardrobe, not on his table, not in his bag, it's not _anywhere_ and he’s digging through everything, rushing around his room, scrabbling around corners. He doesn’t know when his hands had started shaking when he could feel his heart hammering in his chest, his laboured breathing. He can’t fucking _see_ anything through his blurry vision, and he won’t stop fucking _sobbing, _fuck, _fuck- _Where the fuck is it? Where _where-_

He gasps out in frustration and he- he- he just……stops.

He sits down in the middle of his room, papers were thrown about in disarray around him, his shallow breathing the only sound in the muted silence. He stays so very still, sniffs a bit, tries to take a deep breath though it comes out shaky after that. He ignores the drying tear tracks on his cheeks. Steadily, the muted ringing increases, building up into a crescendo. His door clicks open.

“Heyyy bud. I think you left something over in the kitchen? Also, I know you’ve been stressed out over the test so I made some cookies….”

He knows its Hunk, but he doesn’t really have the energy to turn his head around. He wonders what his friend is seeing right now. A total mess obviously, the only light in the room coming from the one pooling on his desk, the way he’s sitting, sprawled on the carpet, rubbing his eyes. The barrage of papers and books lying on the floor, his open wardrobe, the spilt coffee on his bed.

“Lance? What’s all this…..oh,” there’s a rustle, then steps coming closer to his hunched down figure, “Oh no no no, hey Lance? Bud? You okay?”

Hunk places the plate on his desk with a quiet thump, stoops down and puts his notebook down on his lap softly. Lance sniffs again, traces the writings on the messy paper with his fingers. His voice is scratchy and low when he looks up at Hunk, “I was…. searching for that.”

“Yeah?”

He settles down beside Lance, shoulders brushing against his.

“…. yeah.”

“Hey,”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer for a while, but Hunk doesn’t push him. They stew in the silence before Lance shakes his head and closes his eyes tightly.

“I’m, I’m just.” He chokes on a breath, “Scared. I’m _scared_ Hunk.” His back starts to tremble, “I’ve never wanted anything else in my life, more than I want this. But I can’t even pass this stupid fucking test? What’s _wrong_ with me?”

“Everyone keeps telling me that it’s fine, _it’s fine. _You can do this, it’s not hard, for you. They have so much confidence in me I wish I can have some for myself- But I, Hunk I. I don’t know. _I don’t know._ And that scares me. So, so much.”

He starts crying again, and Hunk quietly nods beside him. He covers Lance with his arms, lets him sniff wetly on his chest. Hunk tries to calm him down, murmurs, “_It’s okay, it’s okay._” While he strokes circles on his back. He takes a deep breath and his voice is firm,

“I know. I know I won’t have the right words for this but, well. I just want you to know that for all the years I’ve known you the one thing that I’ve always admired about you was….” Hunk blinks, “How crazy brilliant your pranks were damn,”

Lance laughs softly at that, rubs his eyes and whines out a “_Hunk,_”

“Okay, okay. What I mean to say is, no matter how many times you get scared, or you fall down, or whenever anyone talks down on you? You get back up, each and every time, and I know, _I know_ Lance, that this time is no different.”

His best friend looks at him and smiles softly, “So no matter what happens tomorrow, remember that okay?” he takes Lance’s hand in his and squeezes.

“You _always _get back up.”

-

_Get up, get up._

_This is what you finally want, isn’t it?_

_Your life is what you make of it, you lose this if you give up._

_The only thing stopping you is yourself._

_-_

Lance gets in the full flight simulator. He takes a deep breath, feet steady on the ground as he dreams of the sky.

-

“_Good morning ladies, gentlemen, and non-binaries. This is your captain speaking, first I’d like to welcome everyone on Skywings Flight 77C. We are currently cruising at an altitude of 33,000 feet at an airspeed of 400 miles per hour in the ungodly time of 6:30 am. I don’t know about you folks, but I am in serious need of a morning nap right about now. _

_Anyway! The weather looks good, or as good as it can get here. And with the tailwind on our side we are expecting to land in New York City approximately fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, how about that! The weather in Big Apple is clear and sunny, with a high of 25 degrees, let’s just pray it stays like that._

_If the weather cooperates with me, which it always does don’t worry passengers, we should get a great view as we descend; the empire state building, the huge lights, stan lee street, that one coffee shop I’ve been dying to try, god. _

_The cabin crew will be coming around in about half an hour to offer you breakfast, a light snack or beverage, whiskey, wine, nuts, M&Ms, just don’t go crazy on the chocolate here alright they always run out. The inflight movie will begin shortly after that, no we do not have the latest marvel movie, spoilers are strictly prohibited in this plane. _

_I’ll talk to you again before we reach our destination. Until then, sit back, relax, chill and enjoy the rest of the flight._”

Hours later, as sunshine spills down on his aviators Lance smiles down to the ground as the cityscape becomes larger. He lets out a long breath and finally;

He lands safely.

-_fin-_

**Author's Note:**

> It did happen to me before haha went panicky cuz of a litl thing cuz ive been bottling up everything in me, dont do that lol and if it wasnt obvious this whole thing was totally inspired by that one episode in Miss Pilot......I miss Maki-san :') also, if anyones wondering the CPT stands for Cockpit Procedures Trainer, anyway hope you liked this :3
> 
> I have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/crazydurians)! and check out my other [fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatchaMochi/works) too! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are highly appreciated!


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